LOL. You had me nodding going..OK..sounds good..up until the last remark! Being a school nurse is a sweet job. The kids aren't dying like they were in the hospital...none of them are really that sick, they just want to get out of class. No codes..very few meds..just lots and lots of paperwork. And what other job is like this where I get 2 weeks off in Xmas, 2.5 months in Summer..every holiday off..and to boot I can still work at the hospital as I want to and make about a grand a month...it works out perfect..allows more time at home too with my son and wife.

I own a welder and am slightly skilled at it..would it be worthwhile to try making a manifold or just better off buying? If I wanted to make one..where could I get the piping/flanges?

The only thing that really frustrated me about the last build I did was routing the IC piping. God that was hell...But I tried to use as few connectors as possible...maybe this time do more silicone and less welds.

 

again, its all up to you...
I want to do as much myself as i can, but i also know when to leave it to a pro...like tuning for example, i will spend some time at a dyno, i will not attempt to tune it myself (other than a rough base tune)
flanges...eveywhere, ebay-ETD-JGS, i get mine on ebay, cant mess a flange up too bad, you know...piping, i was advised by a very wise man to use very thick pipes, i source those locally...i do live in NASCAR capital, so lots of performance shops around here...but you could do something like this http://www.jgstools.com/turbo/index2.html but again its all up to you...
IC piping on a Miata is relatively easy if you ask me, im sure some may disagree, but i think it pretty easy even if you only want to use 4 couplers, again as long as you can weld...good luck